Darren McCarty book excerpt: Wrestling with Steve Yzerman and other tales

1:59 PM,
Dec. 2, 2013

Darren McCarty raised the Stanley Cup on June 13, 2002, with his then-5-year-old son, Griffin, on his shoulders.

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Darren McCarty

For Detroit Red Wings fans, three well-known photographs tell the story of Darren McCarty.

In the first, he furiously punches Claude Lemieux, who has curled up in a ball on the ice. In the second, he carries a cigar in his mouth, his son on his shoulders and the Stanley Cup in outstretched arms. In the third, he drives off on his motorcycle in the dark with a passenger tied to the back - the Stanley Cup.

This is how Darren McCarty, though, starts his own story: "It feels as if my life is a Quentin Tarantino movie. ? It's as if I'm one of Tarantino's characters, waking in a deadbeat motel with his life turned ...